‘The Last Showgirl’ Review: Yes, Pamela Anderson Can Act, and This Movie Proves It

Since the release of the schlocky and intermittently entertaining but cartoonishly campy Hulu series “Pam and Tommy” nearly three years ago, Pamela Anderson has made great strides in reclaiming her identity and reminding us that she is a real person human and not just a pin-up from the 1990s. /tabloid/punchline. In 2022, Anderson made her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in “Chicago.” A year later, she published a second memoir, titled “Love, Pamela,” and she appeared as a warm, engaging, self-deprecating presence in the Netflix documentary “Pamela, A Love Story.” When we see Anderson in public these days, it’s without makeup, looking natural and authentic.

Now comes Gia Coppola’s melancholy and beautifully sketched “The Last Showgirl,” and while it may seem damning with faint praise to say that it’s the best performance for an actor known for the television series “Baywatch” and the film d “Barb” action. Wire,” I will also say this: If I had never seen Pamela Anderson before her work here, I would have assumed that she was a talented and seasoned actress, fully capable of handling the heavy burden of being the lead. in a character-driven, dialogue-heavy slice of Las Vegas life.

With a simple and poignant screenplay by Kate Gersten (based on her original play “Body of Work”) and a running time of just 85 minutes, this is a light-hearted film that echoes 1970s “little” classics such that “Alice Doesn’t”. Live here longer. It’s not shocking, or revolutionary, or eye-catching; it’s just systematically GOOD to tell the story of a handful of characters who feel fully lived and completely real.

For 30 years, Anderson’s Shelly has been a dancer in “The Razzle Dazzle,” a feathered, topless revue reminiscent of the “Jubilee!” show that ran at Bally’s Las Vegas from 1981 to 2016. Shelly takes pride in her work as an artist, and she maintains close friendships with an ad hoc family that includes young dancers Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne ( Brenda Song); her best friend Annette (a scene-stealing Jamie Lee Curtis), who is a former showgirl turned world-weary and shitty cocktail waitress, and Eddie (Dave Bautista), physically imposing but gentle, who produces the show and must deliver the sad news of its closure in two weeks.

Shelley goes into a little spiral. We see her standing in the shadow of the iconic Blue Angel statue, with her wings never fading, reminding us that Shelly’s winged costume will soon be a thing of the past. She struggles to reconnect with her ex-daughter, Hannah (Billie Lourd, who said elements of the story reminded her of her mother, Carrie Fisher, and her grandmother, Debbie Reynolds).

Gia Coppola has a directing style closer to that of her aunt Sofia than that of her grandfather Francis, as she delivers one perfect sequence after another, without ever becoming too flashy, without ever altering the natural course of the story with unexpected and unrealistic scenes. “Cinema moments”. This is one of those films that makes us think about the characters and the lives they will have after the credits roll and makes us hope for the best for them all.